The rise of Burn DH was based on the fact, that Guards weren‘t able to land power damage since the Writ of Persistence (symbol trait) nerf, which basically was a nerf on every single mainhand weapon for Guards and with burn damage as an option gone Guards have officially not a single way left oft doing damage after this patch. Even Zeal GS is a bad build, since you have to heavily invest in it and are pretty much a glass canon that doesn‘t land any damage through slow mobility.
I agree with the Burn Guard nerf, but it would have been cool to see some sort of single player power damage buff in return
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power guardian is fine
Saying the exact opposite without any explanation is no argument
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Power guard power dh and you still. Doing burns, just not as opressiv as before
Symbols still do plenty of dmg on their own with zeal line....power coefficients of sword and GS are still relatively high....hammer regardless of what other say, still hits quite hard (5-6k with glacial heart) .
-A wise man once said- "Fight cheese with cheese or be cheesed in return, mind not those who will accuse you of being a cheese as they like cheese themselves"
Problem with you assessment is these skills hit well on a target golem, not a moving target and require heavy amounts of offensive investments (traits and skills like a port) to be able to land effectively. No one with a brain will stand longer than a tick in small symbols, subtract the support skills on our weapons, autoattacks and control effects and we are practically left with GS 2, GS 3, Hammer 2, LB 2, Mace 3 and MAYBE Focus 5 - of which half are insanely hard to land as the slowest class ingame. Add to that that you have to run full glass canon in order to do damage and you end up as a freekill with 11K HP who can‘t land its skills or has only one burst skill per weapon swap.
Compare GS on Guard where 2 skills do good power damage and with 1 engage to Warrior GS where every skill does damage and with 2 engages + range skill - it is not even close.
What if your Glacial Blow is dodged, what do you do then for 6 seconds? Look at your target?
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Nothing is fine about Power Guard. I can't even remember the last time I encountered one.
I say this as someone that despises Guardians because they always manage to find a way to be Meta in every aspect of the game. Guardian damage in PvP has been trash for some time now. They've been surviving by mainly being a support or bunker class until Burn Guards made a come back. However, it seems Anet is intent on nerfing every support build that pops up in PvP, and with Burn Guards being nerfed as well, Guardians will be in a rough spot. Sure, Burn Guards were bad for the majority of PvP players, but they are removing every option for Guardians in PvP without providing new options. Then again, Guardians are like cockroaches, I'm sure a new meta build will show up out of nowhere.
Doc Von Doom
It will and it will be Tank Decap DH with Hammer and Shield, something no one will enjoy
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I play some kind of Power guardian myself and must say .... they are fine as they are and shouldnt see hard buffs. (maybe a LITTLE bit more sustain to core guardian??? idk but hmm core power guardian like this build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAEx3lVwAZesP2IWuPqrcA-zZIPkMVB9KESYC44B are in a pretty good spot in my opinion)
P.S. Maybe they need to at least buff DH a bit in terms of Longbows damage (maybe just buff the 4th skill damage slinghtly)
Those builds are good when you are more skilled than your opponent, but objectively speaking, when compared to current meta builds, they are either garbage or barely viable. If you guys wanna act like everything is fine and let Guardian burn in a dumpster fire, that is perfectly fine by me. Lol. I hate Guardians. You are screwing over your fellow Guardians though.
Doc Von Doom
That's what you getting for gatekeeping rune of the monkey
I like 0 these changes tho, removing superspeed or reducing both effects duration to 1.5s would've been better
Core has nothing to do with this monkey ish mechanics dh enables
Power DH still pretty decent tho.
They have the ability to shred anything that isn't a bunker because Dragons Maw into multiple spins actually chunk people hard.
Still, no idea why they decide to nerf duration again instead of just reducing burn base damage.
Those Burns won't even last a second if yur enemy is running -Condi duration runes.
If I play a stupid build, I deserve to die.
If I beat people on a stupid build, I deserve to get away with it.
OP is right. Condi Dragon Hunter was the only reliable guardian DPS build on even footing with the top builds from Tempest, Scourge (technically, a well-played Scourge was still much stronger), and Holosmith. Condi DH is now 100% dead. A 50% damage reduction would kill meta DPS build except for Condi Scourge at this point.
Now, Guards can run vanilla support (which is much weaker than a Scourge, Engie, Druid, or either Ele variant. Alternatively, we can run power and be outclassed in all areas by Reapers, Holos, Mesmers and Wars. Some garbage variation will stay meta because Guard is the most played class in the game. But the build will be garbage until there is a full rebalance.
If you can play other classes in PvP, jump now. Guards are dead.
Core Supp Guardians should still see play, just perhaps no longer as the dominant supp choice.
But yes, offensive builds are pretty much dead. Have fun being a worse version of thief or revenant.
excuse me sir, are you implying that druid is better support then core kitten guard?
Nah
I've been seeing oldschool power burst core in ATs lately. They still work fine. It's not that power burst was ever bad, it's that burn builds were able to be tweaked in such a way that they had similar damage output to power bust but also 4x the sustain factor.
Burn on Guards is fine. You guys just aren't used to dealing realistic in-line damage output. You're used to outputting this tremendously high pressure where 2 stacks of AoE burn that hits 5 targets can chunk 70% off everyone's life bar. It has made you desensitized to what balanced damage output is supposed to feel like.
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Actually no - when you have one skill that does burst damage per weapon swap and the rest is symbols no one will ever stay in, control effects and support skills you have no way of bursting someone down - this is the reason why Guards swapped to Burn DH right after symbols were nerfed into uselessness. We have GS 2 & 3, Sword 3, LB 3, Mace 3, Hammer 2, rest doesn‘t contribute whatsoever to bursting someone down.
I like seeing Burn DH gone, but we have to admit that Power Guards are big jokes with 11K HP, bad tooltip numbers and extreme low mobility to land skills. Whoever loses a 1v1 to a Power Guard in this meta should consider to change the game mode
Also no, in fact I haven‘t played burn DH a single time the last 2 seasons, so your „you guys are desensitized“ doesn‘t really make sense. I say power damage on Guard is garbage, because it actually is when 4/5 of your skills are support skills, control effects or avoidable by walking for a quarter second in case of symbols
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Burn DH still does perfectly fine amounts of damage. a 3 man dragon's maw in a teamfight is still a teamfight won. It still pairs well with scourge and immob ranger to provide lockdown and cover condis for the burns.
I usually speak out aagainst all these nerfs, but burn DH was obviously way beyond overperforming, and even after the tone down, they're still viable.
But who knows, maybe playing core engi and power dps weaver have skewed my perspective on what a strong class should feel like.
It was, this is why I wrote the same. However, Burn DH was already a gimmick that was a tradeoff of sustain for insane amounts of damage, which no one will take anymore. They essentially cut the damage in half, removed one charge of Sword of Justice resulting in a further 25% damage cut and increased time between casts of SoJ. Sacking every form of sustain is not worth it anymore.
Again I agree with the nerf, but what this is about is the abnormally low and hard to hit power damage Guardians have, which forced this class into degenerate burn builds to have acceptable damage after symbols and with them essentially every single mainhand weapon Guardians use were nerfed
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Nothing you mentioned at all is even a typical burst. I'm not talking about node hold symbol fbs, I'm talking about Power Core Burst Guards.
You know, when a bunch of kitten stacked together that when executed correctly, lands a burst similar to a berserker/eagle sic em soulbeast with one wolf pack stated for damage:
^ This build still works. People just weren't using it because FB was OP for awhile and then the OP swapped to Core burns & supports and DH. I didn't say Power Burst Core was OP, I said it still works fine in a balanced way. Although it isn't a big fat side node beast, it is a powerful team fighter and + while with supports.
I'll say it again, Guardian players are complaining right now because they've been riding the OP top 3 meta train for a very very very long time at this point. Time to experience some good old fashioned middle tiered balance like the rest of us.
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Except that if you miss one step in your whole process and your whole burst goes to the trashcan through one block or evade, you have casted pretty much everything on your skillbar and are a slow freekill with 11K health. I know how to play GS guard skill rotation with JI combos and GS5, which are alot safer than what you described, since I have been playing the class since beta, but this doesn‘t make the build more viable and change the fact that it is an insanely bad power build that in this meta gets outperformed by every other roamer.
There is no bursting when you have 1 burst skill until the next weapon swap and use half your skillbar while maybe landing it as a slow glasscanon
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Who on earth would ever choose this in their team over a Rev or Reaper? It's the same damage output, but with 11k HP, less mobility, and can only connect damage every 30+ seconds by using JI. 11khp, and no blocks or evades on GS, basically means that you can only take a single hit before you have to go into defense/kite-mode, which means your presence in a fight is waaaaaay less than other DPS options. And if you're going to play it as a gank rather than as a team-nuker, there are many many better options for that role.
I didn't say anyone would pick it over a Rev or Reaper. I said it performs fine in a balanced way as compared to how dominant burn on Guardian has been for about the past year.
Everything I have said was in relation to the OP post of "Guard has no more reliable way of doing damage"
Just pointing out that the statement is not true. Guardians, core, DH, FB, they all definitely still deal damage, although it may no longer be a top 3 meta pick.
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Valkyrie Power Guard still and thing, works fine and bursts hard without dying too quickly. Good at taking annoying glass builds out.
Revenant took deserved nerfed and I'm honestly happy to have not seen a single Herald in my today's session because now you have to actually try to use Infuse Light properly and mobility was drastically reduced on Shiro. It's like finally there's some effort to be had.
Willing to help with anything Revenant related.
That's the issue. Doing okayish damage with the worse healthpool in the game fails as a recipe for a playable class. No one cares if guard is a "top 3 meta pick," but compared to other specs with better damage and health, it's simply not worth it to play at all. If that's your definition of balanced....
Also dude who's been playing guard since beta totally debunked your burst combo. You haven't proved that guard still has reliable damage, unless you define "reliable" as effective only on players who don't know what they're doing.
its pretty easy to hit a 10k gs2/ 5k SoJ on marauders, but surviving is def an issue.
te lazla otstara.
fingers crossed meta ~
"Face Palm"
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Guardians: If I go berserker amulet, I might get bursted and die.
laughs in Ele
So let me get this right. You have a 4 second countdown, from outside line of sight (since you mentioned focus 4). You burn your 45s stunbreak to port mid gs4, wait for the aftercast to try and stay inside someone's hitbox for 3.75 seconds without swiftness with a skill that slows you down by 50%?
Did I get that right?
~ God Tier Guardian
~ edit
k somehow mass bugs going on double posting rn
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lol that's exactly what I mean.
The idea that "You have to be squishy if you want to deal a lot damage" is somehow foreign to Guardian players.
Says a lot about this past year's Guardian balance tbh.
Yeah ok bud. Apparently you weren't around for the first 8 years of Guild Wars 2 when everyone was running Core Burst Guardian.
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Difference is that dps Guard has no vigor, no evade frames on any skills. And more than double the cooldown on their one invuln.
They also have a single half usable healskill that goes on full cd when rupted. > @Trevor Boyer.6524 said:
Guardian can and always could do insane amounts of damage on golems. The issue is landing that damage on anyone above silver.
Tracking is an honest to God train wreck, and the skills are just so outdated.
Also, not having top 3 damage outputs on a class with the lowest health pool (since we are forced into movement runes and can't run divinity) and the lowest mobility out of any class.
Don't get me wrong, even though I haven't played the game for 3 something months. I still think this patch was amazing, and I've advocated for burn nerfs for a very long time. But saying that power is half decent is joking yourself.
~ God Tier Guardian
Apparently you weren't around since after they removed agility sigil. The one thing that has carried power guard since its introduction.
You're clueless about dps guard. There are power builds that work, gs is not one of them.
~ God Tier Guardian
Dude I just fought 2x teams in the AT about 10 minutes ago, that were both using Power Burst Core Guards.
They are dealing damage and sustaining just fine while playing wisely.
I have nothing more to say here.
By the end of this week, you'll see everyone doing just fine with a transition to Power Burst Core Guard again.
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Take rapid fire, make it melee. Remove any form of quickness and make it self cripple.
That's Core Guards burst.
~ God Tier Guardian
Actually DPS core guardian was a thing from launch till...the nerfs to righteous instincts and Glacial Heart plus dmg nerf to Mighty blow then we had DPS trap Dragon Hunter, been playing guardian since then and not once I seen the need to slot agility sigil as the initial burst was high enough and pre-cast+teleport was still good thx to Pre nerf Monk's Focus.
I can see people using Agility on hammer builds and yet that was not the reason for the downfall of dps guardian which is still good anyway now after the Feb patch last year
-A wise man once said- "Fight cheese with cheese or be cheesed in return, mind not those who will accuse you of being a cheese as they like cheese themselves"
I more or less theory crafted the hammer guard of 2017 / 2018. The reason it worked back in Core days was because of the games slower pace.
Dps DH was never meta outside of ranked.
There is no way you're ever going to land a 2.5 second channel that slows you on someone with half a brain. That's like landing hundred blades without a stun to set it up.
Edit; dps guard doesn't run Valor anymore.
~ God Tier Guardian
Guard still has decent key word decent damage if you run zerker but with 11k hp you have to be extremely careful to when you jump to a team fight or a plus etc because any burst will prob down you. Tecnically zerker guard is a worst rev or thief.
How dare people to actually kill something running zerker amulet kek. As thief i can't really afford to run zerker tbh hence why i am also not doing 7k backstabs (then again even with zerker i probably wouldn't be able to do it outside of one shot signet monster or something along those lines).
Meh~
You do know that dp thief runs zerker right? And that build has more mov engage disengage and cc and same or more dps than a zerker guard.
When people complain of guard having no reliable damage is legit you have to waste 60-80% of your skills to try and one shot or drop them 70% of ther hp leaving you exposed to any sort of retaliation from your opponent. Again a good player can meke it work into plat but why run zerker guard when you have a much better kit on other prof for doing that role.
You don't run zerker on thief unless you invest in survival somewhere else (especially given amount of condis flying around, ironically from guards as well). Guard can do it as well. Prove me wrong.
As d/p i have 1!!! skill (which requires stealth, which requires me to blow few CDs/drain a lot of ini) that can possibly drop enemy to around 50% their HP (if all stars align), usually it is just 3k that probably won't even scratch scourge barrier. That is, the rest is AA and HS (assuming i don't have to run) spam. Welcome to the world of damage dealer in the bunker meta. When your class have been pigeonholed into scavenger role (pick the strugglers, leech of teammates) since pre-HoT patch (that is 6!!! years now) your empathy for such QQ diminishes enormously.
Ah, and while we are at it, show me rev build that runs zerker without investing into survival.
All in all, you (and other players) have to accept that as damage dealer (lol) you have to work for that damage. You won't get high numbers without playing really risky.
Meh~
You have bs hs shadow shot that hits like a truck sb 1 and 2 not to mention abuncance of cc skills that guard does not have, im
Not stating that thief is broken op etc is just that compared to guard is a better option for roam dps at the moment.
On the condi aspect they have practically the same condi clears on these two build radiant gs and dp thief. And for a reason thief was meta last few season and gs guard was not. Not counting the disgusting burn build that deserved the nerfs.
Rev has power shiro so guard is trying to do the same role they do and they are simply better options
Any buid that does not run atleast one defensive trait line will bot work.
Same reason why ele enthusiasts play ele instead of swapping to Rev, Necro, Holo, or previously, burn DH. Because you like your class and make it work even when other classes can do everything you can but better.
Imagine playing an ele with 13k hp, watching burn DH's dish out 2x the damage you could while facerolling their keyboard and having twice the amount of health as you and a higher armor value and multiple blocks. The highest dps build in the game shouldn't also be one of the beefiest stat-wise.
The only ele build that could compete with burn DH in teamfights damage wise is maybe zerker tempest, and I've had thieves drop me from stealth on that build before the game even has a chance to render their model.
All that being said, I would have liked it if, instead of nerfing burn DH, Anet had re-evaluated their nerfs to Rune of Resistance (strong option vs burn DH) Fire weaver (strong counter to burn DH) and Scrapper (another strong option vs burn DH) but nerfs are all Anet knows how to do and considering Burn DH's stranglehold over 5v5 and 3v3... here we are.
BS is very conditional ergo you have to work for high numbers on BS and blow some CDs/use resources AND position yourself right, most likely in the place where you can get one shot. Once again it does not do high numbers (at least if we take "get enemy to 30% of their Hp" as a bar) unless all stars align (25 stacks of invul from external sources, 25 stacks of might etc.) in current meta.
HS does only somehow high damage when enemy is already short before dying. You have to get there first. And it is also melee, so once again, highly interruptible spell which puts you in bad position.
If shadow shot, sb 1 and sb2 are that high damage (hits like a truck kek) then i really wonder what is pre-patch burn DH damage was.
Guards have abundance of CC skills - they chose not to pick them. Same as i have to trade invul of basi for example. Or headshot for damage.
You want to roam with a guard? Why do you assume that guard is a roamer class? Since when it has become a thing? Since guards have been spoiled by trapper rune?
You know what the actual problem of "zerker" guard is? The other guards and scourge. They are too tanky so you can't do enough damage yet they put out enough damage ( at least scourge) to make guard look for better place.
Once again, if other classes have to work for their damage then same should apply to guards. You can't just dish out massive damage (delete 70% of HP in one shot) and be beefy at the same time. Simple as it is.
Meh~
I havent play ele competitive scicne old cele ele so i dont know well the class as right now i agree the dh burn build was op and metir all the nerfs and agree that ele is in a weird state like power guard.
What cc u talking about hammer gl with that dumpsterfire of a weappon, shield is ok as a cc but you lose like 25% of your dps and gs5 out side of that and long cd power guard has no cc not counting scepter 3 cus is a soft cc, you dont have to spam hs and even on full hp target it still can hit 3-5k damage same as shadow shadow shot.
Guard is not a roamer is true but with the build is not a great team fighter eigther ao is stuck in between like the other guy talking about ele said a guard main can make it work even if hes at a disadvantage it all depends of skill lvl
Edit
Ur right about scourge right now mender is op core shout build was nerfed was op also now is more manageable
Glad I uninstalled when they nerfed my already 9 damage elite, ran sword/focus/longbow with JI-DM since 2016, but for a year with zerk having no damage against condi bunker only to keep getting nerfed for killing bad players with auto attacks.
Math already schooled you so I'm not gonna bother responding to your other stuff, you clearly haven't played guard or you'd understand the healthpool "tradeoff" a lot better LOL.
Your arguments are poor and you have to fall back onto some kinda AT flex? Oop, you saw it twice so it's viable, nice solid argument there. Care to name drop the "best players in the game" running DPS guard?
It'll do fine against golems/silvers, will probably fall apart and be outclassed in gold+.
These claims about not able to land power damage, it's like waiting for a dodge or CC'ing sustain away is just too hard for anyone. It's a joke to heard people complain power guard not being a thing, it is fine.
You're making it sound godly for landing Mighty Blow on plat players over and over, which it isn't. It's perfectly normal when you're reasonable with your expectations.
If you're conditioned to expect 48k burning damage you might as well quit the PvP, people don't want it here.
Willing to help with anything Revenant related.
Guard is cuerrently garbage at PvP. Everything from Firebrand is useless because they have no damage and no sustain on top of being a class with low HP and lackluster mobility; power varaints have been a joke since the Righteous Instincts nerf which turned Valk amulet into kitten. The support builds only worked in conformed teams with VoIP but were easily slaughtered at ranked matches with pugs, and the new nerfs made support core Guardian arguably weaker even in coordinated teams. So burn DH (a PvE build) was essentially the only thing they had (and the main reason I barely touched the class in PvP in the last 4 moths). And that was a cheap build really easy to counter (loved fighting them with my Revs). So now we have three classes (Warriors, Thieves and Guardians) with no place in the meta.
On the other hand I support the changes in the Revenant: mostly because doesn't harm condi or power Heralds a bit, and power shortbow Renegade remains quite healthy for conquest (now prefereably using better weapons than the crappy staff which I've ditched for months in Herald builds):
Even if I land every mighty blow, I'll use the skill twice per weapon swap (this is very obvious). I still won't have enough damage to kill anything with hammer.
And I don't care about ranked. I made top 10 as zerk guard 6 something months ago when I still bothered. It won't see any tournament play.
~ God Tier Guardian